First Strike Still Deadly

I won’t be doing the verdict scores for this one because it’s all old stuff. I’m not really gonna talk about the songs themselves since you can just see my previous reviews for all that. With that being said, it’s not always about how the songs are written, it’s about the way they’re played, take Nirvana for example, their songwriting is shitty and simple, but the way they play those songs is what makes them special. This record is pretty much Testament’s greatest hits compilation, but re-recorded and completely butchered. First of all, if you’re going to put Over The Wall on any album whatsoever, it has to be the opening track. That’s just a fact of life, Over the Wall can never not be the opener under any circumstances, and Testament broke that rule. Into the Pit just doesn’t have the oomph the original had, Alone in the Dark is ruined by Billy’s aged vocals. The drop D tuning also ruins the entire album for me personally.

Almost every track is ruined by the tuning. The sad truth is that these songs were just simply written to be played in E standard, that was what made early Testament so bombastic and out of this world, coupled with the unique use of reverb that is completely absent on this re-recording, and the consequence of this is that is sounds very dry and misplaced in parts, Testament tried to adapt their classic run on songs to modern times, but the whole point of early Testament songs is that they're supposed to sound 80's, so why bother to make old songs sound modern when that completely juxtaposes the intention of the songs?

Also, everything is so processed, the greatness of the first few Testament records was partially created by the raw yet dynamic atmosphere, which is seldom presented here. You can really tell on songs like The Haunting, which can I just say, is played so slowly and sloppily compared to the original, that it’s barely unrecognisable. Burnt Offerings, which is my favourite Testament song, and an absolute thrash masterpiece, is dissected on this record, like come on, what the fuck is that intro? The shitty tuning makes the acoustic arpeggios sound completely different, and instead of playing the intro on the guitar with a synth effect like the original, they just scrap that and play the intro solo on a keyboard, which is fucking ridiculous. It may sound like I’m overreacting, but just listen to this and you’ll get what I mean. Every song has to be played slower for the band to keep up, and I get it, 45 year olds will never be able to play as well as 20 year olds, but they should’ve at least put more effort into it. This genuinely sounds like a Testament Karaoke backing track compilation. So yeah, great songs, Awful playing. Buy the original albums instead.

Ninth album? Compilation album? Whatever it is, whether it was necessary to record this album, it exists. First Strike Still Deadly features the returning drummer John Tempesta, but obviously that’s not all. Alex Skolnick is back! Hope restored. AND, quite the surprising featuring, the very original vocalist, back in Legacy, Steve “Zetro” Souza is in two songs. The band recorded this album before or after Chuck had to overcome the cancer he unfortunately attracted. This is also the last so-called album before the band reunited in the studio to release their 2008 album The Formation of Damnation.

So this record features re-recorded versions of songs from the band’s first two records/Legacy demo. First Strike Is Deadly, Burnt Offerings, Over the Wall, The Haunting, and Alone in the Dark from The Legacy. Then you have Into the Pit, Trail by Fire, Disciples of the Watch, The Preacher, and the titular The New Order. Reign of Fire, originally recorded with Steve and later recorded during The New Order sessions, here the band recorded the song again in a different tuning. This goes for the entire album, tuned a full step down to D standard.

The Legacy re-recorded songs: these songs don’t do any justice and they’re simply heavier, lacking the actual power delivered in the originals. Chuck’s high screams being nonexistent, though he tries to stay faithful to his cleaner style of vocals as he showed in his prime. The music itself, due to being in lower tuning, doesn’t sound that good. At least the bass sounds great, but only in Over the Wall. The re-recorded title track at least sounds melodically rich in tone and overall being the best re-record song that the band offered from The Legacy.

The New Order re-recorded songs: I never liked The New Order and Into the Pit. I find them to be the weakest songs from the original record. The re-recorded versions sound groovier in comparison and slightly worse. So I’d say they’re just terrible songs. I’m so glad they didn’t re-record A Day of Reckoning because it’s my favorite song from The New Order. Other than The Preacher, the rest of the songs are badly affected. These re-recordings didn’t do any justice either. Yes, there’s more bass in them, but that’s not the only factor to make a re-recorded song sound great, or justifiable.

Steve’s songs: I always said Alone in the Dark is the more traditional heavy metal song from the band, but this version doesn’t even beat Steve’s original version. The lower tuning just ruins it. He also sounds pretty damn annoying, but I blame the composition, not him. As for Reigns of Terror, it will wreak havoc on you no matter which version of the song you're listening. The tuning isn’t so bad here. Steve and the rest of the crew did an excellent job. The guitar solo was mildly disappointing and could have made the song sound even better (unless that’s just how it sounds in D standard).

At least one of the three “categories” I created there’s one song that’s worth checking out. One thing for sure, I’m glad Alex is back, and having Steve back for two songs alone shows the respect between the old and current members; like a big family. But all that didn’t really help in recording a proper record. Instead, he band decided to re-record their first two records’ material which didn’t sound the best. There’s potential in few of these songs, but the best are the so-called title track, The Preacher, and Reigns of Terror.

To their credit, Testament was one of the first of the big named thrash acts in the 80s to concoct the idea of an album full of re-recordings, a process that has now been repeated by a fair share of others with such long legacies. In particular, the Germans have excelled at this sort of record, at least Destruction and Holy Moses putting out fantastic tributes to their legacies, but the West Coast US acts have had limited success. First Strike Still Deadly has its moments, but not enough of them to really justify its existence, or recommend it over the original albums from which the songs are drawn. It's not nearly so fugly and awful as that Exodus re-recording of Bonded by Blood with their mediocre, later front man Rob Dukes, but it's no spring chicken.

I mention Exodus partly because one of the highlights of this collection is Steve 'Zetro' Sousa's presence on the final cuts, "Alone in the Dark" and "Reign of Terror". Sousa was actually the original Testament vocalist back when they were known as Legacy, before signing to Atlantic and releasing their debut by that name; so to hear him bury the hatchet and belt out a few numbers for his alma mater is something special indeed, not that they trump the Chuck Billy versions by any means. In fact, I would not have minded the band pulling a few more rabbits out of its hat and just recruiting other friends from Bay Area thrash legends to front the other songs on the compilation. Russ Anderson on "Disciples of the Watch"? Steev Esquivel doing "The Preacher"? Sean Killian on "Into the Pit"? Tom Araya? James Hetfield? Such a lineup could have gone a long way towards increasing the value of First Strike Still Deadly, even if it meant Chuck had to sit out on the sidelines (I'm sure he'd have been smiling along with everyone else). Fans often seem to have a problem with newer singers in established bands (like Dukes) spewing their lackluster inflection over classics, but perhaps a vocal tribute with the core musicians wouldn't be such a shitty idea...

That is not what First Strike Still Deadly is, of course, and for the most part, Billy returns to his role. All of the songs here are taken from the first two albums (with the exception of "Reign of Terror", a tune that had popped up earlier on a single, as well as the Return to the Apocalyptic City EP). Naturally, the major difference here is one of tones and instrumentation. The guitars are presented with a chuggier, modern disposition than the originals, though I can't say they're an improvement, because they seem to lack the same level of resonance and atmosphere as they once did. In fact, the whole of this is surprisingly unpolished, like the band didn't do a whole lot of post-production, and it almost has the feel of a pristine rehearsal room performance. Bass god Steve DiGiorgio performs the bass here, and he adds a few minor runs to the older lines, but never goes overboard; while Skolnick's leads are a little more prominent due to the clarity of the rhythm guitar mix. Overall, the performances are rather spot on, and having Zetro bark out "Alone in the Dark" with his nasally tone is at least entertaining, if not his most vicious and memorable work.

The major problem I have is that these renditions of the tunes, due to their dryer production, lack almost all of the ominous magic that the originals once possessed once you'd put the tape or vinyl of The Legacy of The New Order into your deck or player for the first hundred times. The drums feel too clean, and while the rhythm guitars are fully on point, they seem almost too far in the forefront, and I dare say it, too punchy. I think the vocals themselves probably benefit the most from this treatment, since Billy adds some extra growls to classics like "Into the Pit", but even then, they're just a retread of his original lines. Hell, I would love to see the band perform this tightly at a live gig, but for my own listening preferences there is just no shot in hell that I'm going to put these on over the earlier albums, and aside from throwing a couple of bucks at them, it doesn't serve much purpose in my world, though it's far from the worst example of this sort of collection.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

First formed as Legacy between 1983-1986, the band changed their name to Testament in 1986. This best of/Compilation features selected tracks taken from their first two releases "The Legacy" and "The New Order." The line-up here was Chuck Billy on vocals, Steve "Zetro" Souza on guest vocals, Alex Skolnick on lead guitars, Eric Peterson on rhythm guitar, Steve DiGiorgio on fretless bass and John Tempesta on drums. Not all of the original members were on this compilation. Their former bassist Greg Chrisitan and drummer Louis Clemente were absent from this compilation. Their replacements did a better job than the two previous members. They seemed to exhibit more talent and achieved a better outcome in their execution for these songs.

Thrash metal has always been Testament's genre of music. They've never changed their style even with the line-up changes over the years. So it's safe to say that they never "sold out" like Metallica did. Of course not their entire discography was entirely interesting but at least they stuck to their roots. This best of/Compilation was a good idea though because it brought listeners back to where they originally used to be in terms of the selections from the first two releases. Though they cut out some parts from the originals and/or tailored a few riffs, the ingenious songs still held precedent with this newer best of recording.

Songs held much more crunch tone guitar riffs to them with the exception of the introduction of "Trial by Fire" and "Burnt Offerings." They did take out part of "Disciples of the Watch" but the execution was still well played out by Peterson, et al. These newer recordings I developed a liking to because of the overall intensity of the main riffs, way technical plus reverb enhanced style leads, right on cue drumming and finally, the main vocals as well as the guest vocals. I'd consider this compilation to be very mature and the riff contents to be more fluent than the originals.

All of the tracks that the band selected to be on this compilation were very good choices. Knowing of this band for more than 20 years, I have come to the conclusion that "First Strike Still Deadly" is one hell of a great concoction of remakes. Not a step backward but a better and more fluent examination of the band to see what they seemed to reiterate with these newer thrash metal remakes. The rhythm guitar parts were better than the originals because of their technicality which weren't as affluent as was on the first recordings. Peterson tailored some of the riffs though for the most part his strategies with doing this fit well into a more solid foundation.

The production sound of course was so much more audible and every vocal output as well as the instruments blended very well to form this phenomenal compilation. The leads by Skolnick were of course technical and he enhanced some of his leads by adding reverb to them. That was something different than the originals and in turn fortified the release in an astonishing way. Heavily jazz influenced leads but they mixed well with the rhythm guitar riffs. Everything on this compilation was astonishingly accurate and well executed. The tracks were extravagant and the playing showed how talented this band was during this re-recording.

In terms of the lyrical concepts they seemed to focus mostly on religion, society and suffering. Very intriguing topics and well executed vocal outputs by Billy and guest vocalist Souza. Neither vocalist seemed to exhibit any high pitched screams or yelling at all. It was good that the insert came with the lyrics attached to them because it's difficult to understand Billy's vocal outputs. His style of singing reflects a more rough throat whereas Souza seemed to show a different approach and acquired taste. Both of their efforts fit the music well much more so than on the originals. The songwriting was entirely intelligent and appropriate in accompanying the musical efforts.

It's difficult to understand why many listeners concluded that the original tracks were better than this best of/Compilation. There's not a track on here to dislike. The intriguing guitar riff structures were so well compiled to a degree that has kept me listening to this entire compilation numerous times without it ever going stale. This compilation was so amazingly produced and well executed by all contributors. To give this compilation anything less than a perfect rating would do it a great injustice. If you are a fan of vintage thrash metal played to the point of perfection, then do yourself a favor and pick up this best of/Compilation.

Testament are easily the best thrash band just outside the "big four". While not achieving commercial success like Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer, they have made themselves a force to be reckoned with. This album, a re-recording of songs featured on "The Legacy", and "The New Order" is worth checking out, especially if you are unfamiliar with these recordings.

As you may well know, Testament went under the name "Legacy" prior to about 1987. Originally the band was fronted by vocalist Steve Souza who, after recording a 4 song demo in 1986, left to join Exodus. It was around this time that Chuck Billy came on board as the vocalist and the band changed it's name to Testament. In 1987, the band released their first album, entitled "The Legacy". After receiving critical acclaim in the thrash underground, they quickly went on the road with Anthrax, and recorded and released "The New Order" in 1988. A string of successful albums and a few lineup changes, found the band moving in more of a death metal direction.

With this album, the band has gone back and redone some of the tracks from their first two albums, using the stylistic shifts that they have added to their sound (mainly the downtuned guitars and death metal style vocals) as heard on recent releases such as "The Gathering". Of course, Testament purists will either love or hate this album, depending on what era they prefer.

The good thing about this album is that the songs have more polish to them, and sound much cleaner than the original releases. A big relief was the fact that these songs were not destroyed. Another great thing about this disc was the selection of songs that were rerecorded. All 11 tracks are the best songs off their respective albums (Strangely, "Apocalyptic City" and " Eerie Inhabitants", have been left out). Also some of the songs seem to have been slowed down or changed a little. Alex Skolnick returned to the band to do the guitar tracks for this disc, which is very cool. Skolnick is easily the best guitarist Testament has ever had, and he still can play the hell out of the songs. He also seems to have added a few mildly noticeable changes to the solos and leads. Nothing too major, but enough to make any Testament fan worth their salt hear the slight differences. The mid section of " Burnt Offerings" is the best example of this, as it is now more of a groove than the speed attack it once was. It is refreshing to hear the Skolnick/Peterson guitar assault once again, as this has been sorely missed. As far as the drums go, John Tempesta easily out-plays Louie Clemente, and makes every one of these songs his own. Chuck Billy's vocals are killer as always, and his use of death metal style vocals work well with these songs ("The Preacher", in particular). The downside to this disc, due to the production, is that some of the raw sound has been lost, and some will argue that with this, much of the appeal has been lost as well. Ultimately, it just all depends on what version of Testament you like best or how much you like the original versions.

The real attraction that most fans will have toward this album is that the last two tracks, "Alone in the Dark" and "Reign of Terror", feature Steve Souza on vocals. This gives a brief speculation as to what Testament might have sounded like had Chuck Billy not joined. While it is interesting, overall it proves it was best Souza left the band, as Billy's vocals suit the songs much better.

My only real complaint with this offering is that with the originals, you could hear in the music that the band was out to conquer the world. This has been somewhat lost, as Testament seem to have released this to appeal to longtime fans, as opposed to breaking new ground; the main point of this disc was to release an album to hold over fans until the next original studio album, while possibly gaining a few fans in the process.

All in all, this disc is worth a listen. I applaud Testament for making such a brave move, as other bands that do this are usually met with fan backlash. Although not a bad disc by any means, fans will probably be better off buying "Live at the Fillmore", as this offers better current renditions of these songs. As for me, I will take the originals any day, and I give this disc a solid 70.

So you’ve heard about Testament’s First Strike Still Deadly album and are curious as to whether or not you might enjoy it. Here’s a quick quiz to test your compatibility with the album in question:

Question 1: Which of the following do you prefer?

A) The Legacy

B) Sludgy modern thrash - i.e. Demonic

Test over. If you answered anything but A, you might enjoy the updated versions of these classic (and semi-classic) Testament tunes. However, if you answered A you might as well forget it and go happily on your way having never heard this.

Basically, there isn’t a single recording present on this album, with the exception of “Reign of Terror” (which for some reason sounds like Sacred Reich’s “Death Squad” on here) with Zetro on vocals, that is made better through re-recording. The album is definitely heavier than either The Legacy or The New Order, but at the price of speed and the general song mechanics. The songs are technically reproduced to follow the originals, but certain things are just amiss here. Chuck Billy’s vocals aren’t bad, but he can’t do those crazy shrieks anymore like in the old recordings. There’s a slight toned back feeling in the tempo that makes songs that were previously fucking vicious drag and lose intensity. The lead guitar tone sucks, and while the rhythm tone is better, it is far too clean and processed. The originals were raw and fierce and just way better. This holds true virtually the entire way through this (again, excepting where Souza gets his hands dirty in it).

There are other nagging complaints (like some of the studio trickery employed throughout, some odd emphasis on parts that shouldn’t be emphasized, the wrong fucking solos/melodies) but it will suffice to say that Testament butchered their own songs on this record. It’s actually a good thing that they didn’t include more classic songs (like “Apocalyptic City” or “Raging Waters” in place of “The Preacher” or “Into the Pit) because that’d be even more reason to dislike this. As several other reviewers have wisely suggested, just buy the originals!

The concept behind this album is a clever one: how much better would Testament's early albums sound if they actually had halfway decent production? This is something that I have been wondering myself; I had always thought that people dismissed Testament's work merely for the production, even though said detractors would probably blame it on some aesthetic aspect of the album. When I first learned of the existence of this album, I dismissed it as a money-grab. It wasn't until I was more knowledgeable about music and thrash in general that I decided to once again listen to the old albums. It was then I realized how weak the rhythm guitar sounded on every album up until "Low," and noticed the terrible lead guitar tone on "The New Order."

All of the sudden this album emerged as a must-have for me. I had always liked Testament, and it intrigued me as to how good they could be with a modern sound. It wasn't like a bunch of new members were re-recording old material; in fact, original vocalist Steve Souza of Exodus was brought in for a couple of songs (he was the vocalist back when the band was known as "Legacy"). The result is a new take on "Alone in the Dark" which is much better than one might expect. Souza doesn't necessarily give a better performance than Chuck Billy did on the original version, but merely a different one, his vocals add a sort of intensity to the song, replacing Billy's more melodic take.

Sadly, the rest of the album is nowhere near as good as I was hoping. The songs lack the passion of the originals; instead of a young group of kids showing what they have, they sound like a bunch of kids playing a piece at their piano recital. They are merely playing the notes without making any effort to add that extra "oomph" which made the original recordings so delectable. Alex Skolnick no longer seems to want to prove to the world that he is the best shredder out there, and he also uses this jazzy guitar tone that doesn't fit the music at all. Eric Peterson's riffing seems to be slower and less..."heavy." Granted, "heavy" is a subjective term, but when I hear those awesome riffs for "The New Order" and "Trial by Fire," I don't want to stand up and rock out. I want to sit down in a chair, pick up a Wall Street Journal, and sip green tea. The whole point of this album was for me to be able to rock out more to these songs, not make me lethargic.

Really, there's no reason to purchase this album, at all. The somewhat better production is canceled out by the fact that, aside from the Souza songs, the new versions really aren't worth listening to. Although I wouldn't go far enough to suggest that this should only be played in dentists' waiting rooms, it certainly doesn't belong in a car stereo being played at high speeds, either. The highest purpose that this album can serve is as a novelty. Listening to this would have given me doubts as to how intense the band's forthcoming studio album will be, but their amazing "Live in London" CD silenced those fears. The best approach to this album is just to pretend that it never got released.

I'm generally against such releases - they show nothing new and in most of the cases the reproductions are few times worse because of the band's inability to play as aggressively as all those years ago. However, there are little exceptions to this rule, such as this album. And though Testament's albums didn't need refreshing, this small experiment turned out to be a nice glimpse into the past.

The problem is: not all the songs got improved. Obviously, the thing to change was the heaviness of the songs as the latest Testament's releases reached a completely new level in sound, which made it sound very heavy and death metal-like. This let the classics like "Disciples of the Watch" or "The Preacher" far more "thrashy" than before. However, it also made the songs from "The Legacy" album less aggressive, a bit slower. Their value was also diminished by the vocals, which just don't fit the music. These are not good examples of high quality of the re-recordings.

Playing those old songs differently was a good idea and generally it went good, but the thing to change was the set of the classics so there would be less "The Legacy" and more "The Ritual", for example. Or play them differently, which seems hardly possible for a band staying alive for twenty years and collecting the old line-up again.

When I first heard that Testament was going to re-record some old classic tunes, I laughed and simply thought it was the dumbest idea ever. Then again it has been a decade or so since the band probably played their classic tracks the same way. With a new line up it seemed like not such a bad idea. So when I popped the cd into my stereo I wasn't too impressed, there didn't seem to be the same energy that the origonal recordings had. Petersons guitars lacked revered and Tempesta's kits wasn't powerful enough. I didn't think too much of Billy's vocals cause it worked with the rest of the sound.

A few months passed and I began to listen to it again and realized that my first impressions of the album weren't doing it for me anymore. I grew quite fond of the album and quite frankly thought it was better than the "very best of testament" (yes I am lame enough to buy a best of album, sue me. it beats not knowing what album to buy and wind up with their worst work ever). The lack of energy I once heard was transformed into a meaty burst of adrenaline that screamed, "We can still kick your ass!!!" While the new sound may not be the same as the glory hay days of the 80's, it diffenately has a new form of energy from the east bay thrashers. There still remains a very solid and tight-knit level of musicians ship, in other words, no one is fucking around. The one thing I must say I like as an addition to the band is Steve Digorgio's bass work, his frantic fret-work (despite the fact that I think he plays a fretless bass) deffinately added a smoother element to the low ends of the mix. While the drums may not have the classic booming 80's reverb, tempesta's kit has a very nice full sound which compliments the heaviness of the guitars. And last but not least, I must mention Zetro's throat work on the final two tracks. Deffinately something different and not expected but I can't complain too much. Overall I enjoyed this cd very much. There are no indavidual highlights from the cd because lets, face it, they managed to get all the goodies onto one album (the zetro tracks might be in question, but the opening guitar work on "reign of terror" is fucking mind boggling). This is deffinately a good album to have in your collection. Go buy it (NOW!).

Thrash metal legends "Testament" keep the painting in the golden frame by producing this awesome release of re-recorded classics.

"First Strike Still Deadly", the title of their new album. When I first read about it, I was thinking; "Why would they touch those master pieces?' But then when I saw the line-up for this record...Alex Skolnick, Steve Souza, John Tempesta..and well, my expectations instantly grew into a huge metal boner.

All the re-recorded songs come off their first two albums, "The Legacy" and "The New Order".

What a great way to start off the record with "First Strike Is Deadly", the drum-intro obviously being done by Tempesta this time, instantly capturing attention. The guitars sound greater than ever, and Chuck did a fantastic job with the vocals, his screamy, clean thrash-takes from the early days mixed with his death-metal growls that make Testament what they are today.

Ofcourse, the entire record is filled with awesome classics, but there's this one song that really made me all excited about the whole thing. "OVER THE WALL" .. What more can you want?! In my opinion, Testament's best song, and it's being re-done with the superb production that they have nowadays. Alex's solo raping your stereo system!

Steve Souza (Exodus) put in his share aswell on the last two tracks "Alone In The Dark" and "Reign Of Terror". It's great to see the old foundation-members getting back into the room and producing this great fucking metal piece.

This is just plain ridiculous. Just when you think that Testament couldn't fuck up any harder, they did. They manage to take songs off The Legacy and The New Order and strip away anything that was ever good about them.

For example, the opening track - possibly the best song on The Legacy. First Strike is Deadly - a beautiful fucking solo in the original, and here it is reproduced note for note, but about 85% speed, and buried in the mix. They then amplify that boring fucking riff, and also make the drumwork too loud. Does not work at all. Also, Chuck Billy's vocals just don't fit, and the rhythm guitar sounds completely off the mark. It's hard to describe exactly why, but the originals are less "bouncy" sounding - less accent on the single snare hit once per beat - here, you hear too much damn drums.

Then they throw in not one, not two, FIVE goddamn songs from The New Order in a row. Oh man, this is unbearably bad. It really makes you realise how similar those songs were originally. First, Into the Pit. Listen to the under-verse riff. That is the basic Testament Riff. It appears again in Trial By Fire, and AGAIN in Disciples of the Watch, The Preacher, and Burnt Offerings. Holy crap, it's pretty much the same song, five times. Wait, Burnt Offerings is off The Legacy? I couldn't tell. Sounds just like the rest.

Then, Over the Wall - finally, something a bit different, but again this sounds nothing like it should. Chuck's vocals just don't make any sense in this context - also the backing vocals are too over-emphasised, and in general the riffs are too choppy, with the drums too prominent in the mix. Oh and then the solo... Alex's solo is done pretty decently, but then what the fuck is up with Eric Peterson's "solo"? You know, the little Judas-Priest-like melodic part. It's out of key!!! What the fuck, it doesn't make any fucking sense!!! Also, they throw it into the stereo field slightly out of phase, just to give you a headache. Argh - you people completely fucking destroyed the song. Idiots.

Then, yet another fucking The Worthless Order song. Let us speak no more of it. The Haunting is a generic Legacy track that really doesn't do anything either. Here, they manage to make it do even less. The guitar tone is just horribly inappropriate.

Then... Alone in the Dark with Zetro. This one almost sounds better, because here Zetro is a better vocalist than Chuck. This is not true in general, but Zetro just sounds vicious, as opposed to trying too fucking hard. A bit annoying in the verses, but in the chorus, fucking awesome. FAUSTUS PREPARES THE LEGIONS OF THE NIGHT!!!!

The riffs are tighter-sounding in general than on the rest of the album, and almost as good as on the Legacy.

Finally, we have the ONE song that makes this album not entire shit. The obligatory Forgotten Song, Reign of Terror. Why this did not make it onto The Legacy is beyond me - the demo version is fucking awesome, and is the greatest song Testament ever did.

Make it the second-greatest. This version fucking kicks its ass. I have no idea why they didn't make the drums and guitars interact this way on the rest of the album, because here it's fucking powerful and raw as Hell. Excellent riffage - and man do these guys know how to thrash. You know that riff in the middle of the song - well, here, it's about 10 times heavier, and 100 times as effective. I never thought they could do it, but they managed to make the song BETTER!!! And Zetro is in top shape, absolutely fucking excellent. The highlight of their career.

In conclusion - download that one song, and to Hell with the rest of the album.

So Testament decided to take a trip down the memory lane and re-record some of their classic songs from their two first albums, The Legacy and The New Order. Chuck and Eric have gotten Alex Skolnick back to play the lead guitar on the remakes. Even Steve Souza (Exodus), who used to sing vocals in The Legacy, a early version of Testament, does the vocals on two tracks here. Five of the songs appear on The Legacy, five on The New Order and 'Reign of Terror' is a song from their demo times (a live version appears on Return to the Apocalyptic City EP).

It is debatable if First Strike Still Deadly is worth of a release since all of the songs have already been recorded. For an old fan it is just an interesting album and not necessary since they already own the songs on other CDs. The album is more directed towards new Testament fans who this way have a chance to check out some classic Testament tracks which have better production and are otherwise up to date.

The production is top notch, if talking from a technical point of view. Everything is perfectly balanced and audible but somehow it just seems totally wrong. Bay area thrash was never meant for this kind of production. The guitars must sound sharp and raw, not clear and clean like on First Strike Still Deadly. Also Chuck Billy does the vocals like on The Gathering and while they fitted there, such harsh vocals don't fit these classics. I'm not sure if he is still capable of doing such thrash vocals as he did on The Legacy and The New Order but it didn't sound like that in Dynamo 2000 nor on this album.

Souza sings the vocals on 'Reign of Terror' and 'Alone in the Dark'. He has taken part in the making of those songs, hence he sings them. Souza used to be the vocalist of Exodus (and once again is), another very succesful Bay area thrash band. His versions of those two classics are rather intriguing since his vocals differ quite much from Chuck's. Souza actually sounds somewhat similar with Blitz from Overkill. The other visitor, Alex Skolnick, perfoms his solos well. He is definetly good but the fire of the original recordings is missing. I love Skolnick's solowork but it's only good at best on FSSD.

The tracks with Steve Souza sound rather interesting though they are only two. All in all it's a good album for new thrash fans to get acquinted with the past though I'd recommend getting the actual albums since they are cheaper than this one even if you both of them at the same time.

(Originally released in Tuonela Webzine (c) 2001)